S.U.V. From Toyota in 2004 to Use Hybrid Technology

By DANNY HAKIM

DETROIT, Jan. 7 — Toyota announced today that it would start selling a hybrid version of a small S.U.V., the RX 330 from its Lexus brand, by the end of next year.

The Lexus hybrid is likely to be the first luxury auto to use the highly fuel efficient technology and the second such S.U.V. on the market. Hybrids supplement the internal combustion engine with electric power.

"You can't deny the hybrid potential," said James E. Press, the executive vice president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. "The Prius proves the business case," he added, referring to the company's current hybrid, the subcompact Toyota Prius. "We're not losing money on Prius. It works, Customers love it."

The plan, described at a press preview of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, was part of a flurry of announcements here about fuel efficient technologies. Which particular technology was being talked up depended on which automaker was doing the talking.

On the hybrid front, General Motors said Monday that it would make its first foray into hybrids by offering the technology as an option on the Saturn Vue S.U.V. in 2005. G.M. also plans to offer more limited forms of electric power in four other high-volume models by 2007, with a target of improving fuel economy by at least 12 percent.

Toyota and Honda, which began offering hybrid vehicles in the late 1990's, have been the only two automakers to offer hybrid power so far. The Ford Motor Company plans to sell a hybrid version of its Escape S.U.V. in December.

"We do believe diesel represents a great opportunity for the country altogether; this certainly would be something that would make sense," Mr. Zetsche said. His company plans to start selling about 5,000 diesel versions of its Liberty S.U.V. in 2004. And Chrysler's corporate cousin, Mercedes, said this week that it would offer a limited number of diesels on the E-Class sedan in 2004.

Diesels are more fuel efficient than standard gasoline-fueled cars and, because of that, would reduce emissions of carbon, which is believed by many scientists to add to global warming. But environmental groups contend that diesels still have unacceptably high emissions of smog-forming pollutants.

Rick Wagoner, chief executive of G.M., was pessimistic about the prospects for the technology in the United States. "Our read from Washington, the environmental communities, has not been very constructive on diesels, to put it mildly," he said. "We're not anti-diesel, but we're somewhat guarded."

"Our latest check on this wouldn't indicate there's a groundswell to support it," he added.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/01/09/BU214316.DTL

Gas-hogging SUVs aid terrorism, new TV ads say

George Raine, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, January 9, 2003

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

An advertising campaign asserting that those who own gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles are supporting terrorism -- because Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich nations that support terrorism benefit -- will begin airing in San Francisco and other major cities Sunday.

The 30-second spots are parodies of the U.S. government's provocative antidrug advertising, which argues that drug money benefits terrorists. The anti-SUV spots were produced by syndicated newspaper columnist Arianna Huffington and a group of like-minded people in the entertainment industry.

"Just 5 percent of SUVs are used off-road, which means that for most of us, SUVs are a lifestyle choice that can be sacrificed when our national security is at stake," Huffington said Wednesday as she showed the ads at a news conference in Los Angeles.

Huffington added that until November of 2001 she owned a Lincoln Navigator that got 13 miles per gallon, but now drives a Toyota Prius, which gets 52 mpg.

At least three television stations have rejected the advertising, according to publicists for the group Huffington formed to create the ads, the Detroit Project. One was KABC in Los Angeles, where a spokeswoman confirmed the ad was not accepted, although she was unable to give the station's reason for rejecting it.

In Washington on Wednesday, Jean AbiNader, managing director of the Arab American Institute, called Huffington delusional.

"If she thinks Occidental Petroleum and ExxonMobil and the car manufacturers are draining money out of the United States to feed the coffers of terrorism, she is not only delusional, but it almost is embarrassing to try to make that connection," AbiNader said.

"We should have a serious debate about energy policy in this country, but this is not a contribution to that debate," he said.

In one ad, a woman says, "I helped hijack an airplane. I helped blow up a nightclub. So what if it gets 11 miles to the gallon? I gave the money to a terrorist training camp in a foreign country. It makes me feel safe. I helped our enemies develop weapons of mass destruction. What if I need to go off- road? Everyone has one. I helped teach kids around the world to hate America. I like to sit up high. I sent our soldiers off to war. Everyone has one. My life, my SUV. I don't even know how many miles it gets to the gallon."

The script for the second ad reads, "This is George. This is the gas that George bought for his SUV. This is the oil company executive that sold the gas that George bought for his SUV. These are the countries where the executive bought the oil, that made the gas that George bought for his SUV. And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV.

"Oil money supports some terrible things. What kind of mileage does your SUV get?"

Huffington has written several columns critical of Congress for failing to pass the McCain-Kerry fuel efficiency bill and others lamenting the nation's inability to reduce demand for foreign oil. She asked a rhetorical question at the end of her Oct. 21, 2002, column, "Anyone willing to pay for a people's ad campaign to jolt our leaders into reality?"

Said Bender: "The goal of the campaign is not to demonize people who drive SUVs. Rather, we want to point out how our driving habits at home are fueling oil money to Saudi Arabia -- which funnels some of that wealth to support charities and religious zealots with ties to terrorist activity -- and to Iraq, where Saddam Hussein invests the profits in weapons of mass destruction."

Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade association in Washington, said about 4 million SUVs were sold in the United States. in 2002, about 21 percent of the nearly 17 million passenger vehicles sold. SUV sales in 2000 were about 17 percent of the total, he said.

"Every year Americans buy SUVs for safety, comfort and functionality. "She (Huffington) is entitled to her opinion. She's wrong. Our view is she is outvoted 4 million to one," Shosteck said.

Said Huffington, "With all of the talent, ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit Detroit has exhibited in the past, we have no doubt that they can make more fuel-efficient, cleaner cars that help us reduce our oil addiction."

The ad campaign can be seen at www.thedetroitproject.com.

E-mail George Raine at graine@sfchronicle.com.
http://www.bts.gov/publications/nts/html/table_01_29.html

I believe this statistic shows that there are far more (10 times more) consumer vehicle miles driven then truck miles driven in America.

NY Post PAGE SIX

By RICHARD JOHNSON with PAULA FROELICH and CHRIS WILSON

January 13, 2003 --

MANY of the Hollywood celebrities behind the new campaign against gas-guzzling SUVs are hypocrites who consume huge quantities of fossil fuels in their stretch limos, Gulfstream jets and oversized Beverly Hills mansions.

TV producer Norman ("All in the Family") Lear, who is spearheading the conservation crusade along with columnist Arianna Huffington, built a garage for 21 cars five years ago which stands 45 feet tall.

"Lear's neighbors . . . contend that the structure, complete with a tennis court atop, was built in violation of city height restrictions," the Los Angeles Times reports. "Lear's parking garage has ruined the aesthetics of the wooded canyon."

Gwyneth Paltrow is appearing in ads for Lear's Enviromental Media Association (EMA) accusing SUV owners of supporting terrorism. But some of Paltrow's neighbors find her to be an odd choice for an anti-SUV poster girl.

"She drives a Mercedes-Benz SUV," says a tipster who lives down the block from Paltrow's West Village digs. "Not only does she drive an SUV, she selfishly parks it on the sidewalk in our neighborhood." Paltrow's publicist did not return calls.

The commercials have outraged drivers from all walks of life. They juxtapose footage of Americans filling up their SUVs with clips of Middle Eastern terrorists in face masks raising AK-47s.

Chevy Chase and his wife are avid supporters of the EMA, but that doesn't stop them from cruising around Westchester in the luxury of a SUV.

"They keep it in the back and it's very rarely used," Chase's rep, Alan Eichorn, tells PAGE SIX's Ian Spiegelman. "They only use it when they have to attach the horse trailer or when they're carrying a lot of kids."

Eichorn explains that the Chases are "extremely enviromentally conscious," that they have not one but two of Toyota's Prius model hybrid cars, and that they even use solar panels to heat their swimming pool.

"They hate having the SUV and they're going to get rid of it as soon as the carmakers come out with a hybrid version."

Barbra Streisand, meanwhile, never seems to tire of telling other people how to live, but the world would be a pretty smog-filled place if the rest of us lived like her. As The Post reported recently, Streisand and her hubby James Brolin have SUVs. Streisand's rep would not comment on what vehicles the couple is currently driving, but said that they plan to buy a Prius.

January 18 2003 Los Angeles Times Editorial

Only months after the big auto makers vowed it couldn't be done, it is being done. Toyota has announced it will produce a full-sized luxury sport utility vehicle with a hybrid gasoline-electric engine that has all the bravado and macho of a standard V-8 but gets at least 10 miles per gallon more than current models.

The new Lexus was introduced at an auto show last week in Detroit, the hotbed of last year's sky-is-falling rants (successful) against Congress' attempt to require better gas mileage, especially from SUVs, and (unsuccessful) against a bill in the California Legislature to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases considered a cause of global warming.

The new SUV will hit showrooms by the end of next year. The Lexus 330 not only will provide better fuel economy, at 35 mpg, and lower emissions, it will be more powerful and perform better than conventional models, Toyota says. The hybrid combines traditional gasoline technology with an electrical propulsion system using power generated by the gasoline system. Toyota expects to sell up to 500,000 of its Lexus 330s a year at prices comparable to those of current models.

General Motors announced its own plans to have a dozen models of hybrid vehicles, including full-sized pickups and SUVs, during the next five years. Honda already has hybrids on the road. Others aren't far behind. But the Toyota and GM announcements, coming so soon after auto makers' nearly tearful protests that gas-consumption reductions would put soccer moms in tin cans, expose the industry's stock of falsehoods.

In the Senate, the auto makers claimed that if they were required to make higher-mileage models they would have to resort to flimsy materials in low-powered vehicles barely bigger than a golf cart. Government regulators would be dictating what kinds of vehicles people could buy. Mothers and children would be at risk.

Enough senators bought this nonsense that a small increase in required gas mileage failed. But expect to hear similar cries as Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) sponsor a bill to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions in both manufacturing and transportation.

The auto industry trotted out the same rhetoric during an almost hysterical campaign to defeat a bill requiring the state Air Resources Board to set limits on vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions, primarily carbon dioxide, in time for 2009 models. The campaign included television auto hawker Cal Worthington declaring, "I'm scared to death and you should be, too." Even so, the bill squeaked through and was signed into law by Gov. Gray Davis.

California delayed its new emission standards until 2009 to give hand-wringing auto makers time to develop new technology. Now it's clear that bigger, brawnier hybrid SUVs will be on the road long before the Air Resources Board even starts hearings on what emission levels to consider. That should make the board's job considerably easier -- and ought to quiet all the rhetoric about how it can't be done.

January 19, 2003

Interview by ROBERT MACKEY

How did your TV commercials connecting S.U.V.'s to terrorism get started?

After watching the drug-war ads equating taking drugs to terrorism, I wrote a column making a link between driving gas-guzzling cars like S.U.V.'s and supporting countries that fund terrorists. And at the end of this column I had what I considered a rhetorical question: would anyone be willing to pay for a people's ad campaign to jolt our leaders into reality? The next morning I woke up to a flood of over 5,000 e-mails. So I called two great friends of mine who are sort of activists in their own ways. One is Laurie David, who is an environmental activist and married to Larry David, who put the first hybrid cars on his show, ''Curb Your Enthusiasm.''

I've noticed he's driving a funny car on the show, what seems like a funny car for L.A.

He's a complete believer in it -- in fact, he came to our press conference yesterday in his Prius.

Doesn't everyone in Hollywood drive an S.U.V.? Didn't you?

Yes. Absolutely. That's really the nation-divided, the city-divided element that's going on. There are S.U.V.'s everywhere.

What kind of car do you drive now?

I drive a hybrid Prius.

Since when?

I've been driving it for six, seven months. I mean, I'm a new convert. And that's why I'm not here like a holier-than-thou person. I was driving a Lincoln Navigator until November 2001.

You wrote a book about the Greek gods and goddesses and their lessons for modern life. They're not really famous for their self-restraint -- wouldn't they all drive S.U.V.'s?

I think Hermes would definitely be driving a hybrid car. He really understood complexity and could handle it. He was the god of the underworld and the god of commerce, just to give you an idea. Zeus would probably be flying.

What would Maria Callas drive? You wrote a biography of her too.

Maria Callas would not drive. Prima donnas do not drive. But the best thing going on here now, people who do not drive, but use drivers, now have chauffeur-driven Priuses.

Do you know what Prius means?

No, I'll have to find out. It sounds vaguely naughty. With my Greek accent a lot of things sound vaguely naughty.

Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Patricia Arquette are some of the people driving hybrids. Don't you worry that since celebrities are always pitching something, your effort will seem like just another ad campaign for Toyota?

Basically Washington is in the pocket of Detroit, so we need all the forces we can gather, and if those forces include celebrity, fabulous. Incidentally over the last few days I am finding out there are a lot of people driving hybrids who are not publicizing it -- Kirk Douglas and Richard Dreyfuss, for instance.

Are you worried that your movement will be swept out of sight if we go to war with Iraq and that's what the news is all about?

I don't really think so. You know, in one day, yesterday, we got more than 400,000 hits on the Web site. We're already having people signing the pledge to give up their S.U.V.'s.

You have a pledge?

Yes, they don't have to put their hand on the Bible and swear, but so far 4,000 people have signed up in the first two days.

Can 4,000 people really scare Washington and Detroit?

First of all, this is just the beginning, but secondly a very small aroused minority is all that it takes in our democracy at the moment to scare Washington. They scare very easily.

You're thought of as a conservative, and you serve on the board of the Points of Light Foundation, so what do you say to your conservative friends who drive S.U.V.'s?

I have reregistered as an independent -- but I don't think it's a left-right issue. A lot of Republicans share this concern. But I still have a lot of friends who drive S.U.V.'s, and my personal response is not to browbeat them but to help them connect the dots. And if they still choose to drive an S.U.V., that's their choice. You know, I have a lot of my friends making wrong choices all the time.

January 24, 2003 NY Times "Escapes" section

By AMY CORTESE

YOU have heard about the new environmentally friendly cars, fueled by electricity or natural gas, or combining electricity and gasoline. But have you ever actually driven one? There is a way. Take one on vacation.

A number of rental car agencies now offer models like a natural-gas-powered version of Ford's Crown Victoria and Honda's electric-powered EV Plus (which is no longer made), or gasoline-electric hybrids like the Toyota Prius, the Honda Civic Hybrid and the two-seat Honda Insight. Going green requires perseverance: these cars are not available everywhere, and where they are, their availability is not always apparent.

A spokeswoman for the Hertz Corporation said last week that Hertz offered some hybrid and electric models in California, but calls to the company's reservation line left operators stumped.

Smaller regional outfits may be a better bet. City Rent-a-Car in San Francisco (877-861-1312), for example, offers the Toyota Prius for $50 a day or $250 a week. ZAP (800-251-4555), a company based in Sebastopol, Calif., is making its all-electric ZAP neighborhood cars — suitable for light local driving with top speeds of 25 miles per hour — available for rental and purchase in cities like San Francisco; Palm Springs, Calif.; and Key West, Fla. The four-passenger version rents for about $50 a day.

The largest environmentally friendly fleet belongs to EV Rental (877-387-3682), a Los Angeles-based company with 400 vehicles. The cars are available through Budget Rent A Car in Washington, D.C., and in 13 other cities in California, Arizona and Pennsylvania. You will have to ask specifically for an alternative-fuel or hybrid car — they are often not advertised.

Robert Lundquist, 53, lives in Santa Cruz, Calif., and flies 270 miles every week to Los Angeles, where he is a graduate student at the Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, and then rents a car from EV. "If I'm going to be in L.A., I'm not going to put one more ounce of pollution into it if I can help it," he said. His favorite EV car is a natural-gas Honda Civic GX that he gets for about $40 a day — he said it was "sturdy, fast and has no problem accelerating" — but he has tried out several other cars, too.

An electric car is another kind of adventure. Drivers are usually captivated by the cars' eerie quiet. Greg Gretsch, a partner at a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, Calif., recently purchased a battery-powered Toyota Rav4, a small S.U.V. When people try an electric, he said, "the first response is: 'Is it on? Where's the noise?' "

Less entertaining, however, is the rapid descent on the power gauge. Electrics have a range of about 100 miles before the battery must be recharged. A full recharge takes five or more hours; a briefer one won't get you far.

Owners of electric cars usually have connections in their home garages that recharge the cars overnight (some, like Mr. Gretsch, also have them at the office), but renters must coordinate their trips around public recharging stations. Most rentals come with maps that show places to juice up; in Los Angeles, there are 600 of them, ranging from gas stations and mall parking lots to the Beverly Hills Hilton. In other regions they can be hard to find.

Hybrids are probably the cars renters are most likely to try with actual purchase in mind. They use both gasoline and battery power, relying on each power source when it is more efficient — for instance, the electric motor when starting out and the gasoline engine when cruising on the highway. The battery is automatically recharged and the cars never need to be plugged in.

Another option is a natural-gas-powered car. Tom Bealy, a technology professional who lives in Silicon Valley, regularly rents a natural-gas-powered Crown Victoria from EV when he goes to Los Angeles, where the publishing company he works for is based. He said he liked being able to drive into the city from the Los Angeles airport in the car-pool lane, a privilege extended to cars without passengers only if they run solely on electricity or natural gas. "I know I can leave downtown one hour before my flight for a 20-minute ride," he said. He added that he liked the fact that natural gas costs less than gasoline.

Terry O'Day, president of EV Rental, said that the company has a lot of try-before-you-buy traffic and has started selling models it is retiring from its rental fleet. This week the EV Web site, www.evrental.com, was advertising 2001 Prius models starting at $16,000 (original price, $21,000) and natural-gas-powered Honda Civic GX's for as low as $11,000.

At the North American International Auto Show this month in Detroit, several automakers introduced new hybrid models. Ford, for example, has a hybrid model based on its Escape S.U.V. that will get 40 to 50 miles per gallon of gasoline. Of course, because the automakers limit their production, there is likely to be a long waiting list to purchase any of these new hybrids. In the meantime, you can always rent.

NY Times (page 1) January 28, 2003

Hybrid Cars Are Catching On

By DANNY HAKIM

DETROIT, Jan. 27 — Hybrids, vehicles that save gasoline by combining electric motors with internal combustion engines, are emerging as the first alternative-powered cars to show signs of catching on with automakers and some consumers since the automobile's early days.

Toyota and Honda are already selling tens of thousands of hybrids, and General Motors and Ford, worried about ceding another fast-moving market to the Japanese, have announced plans to join them. The hybrid's rise has been encouraged by pressure from environmentalists and regulators, particularly California rules curbing greenhouse gases and smog-forming pollutants.

"Hybrid technology is one that has great appeal because we don't have to really invent anything; we know they work," said William Clay Ford Jr., Ford's chairman, in a recent speech. "If these vehicles don't get customer acceptance, I really don't know what we do next."

A hybrid's battery is recharged by the internal combustion engine and by collecting energy when the car brakes. The battery powers an electric motor that supplements, or takes over for, the gasoline-powered engine. In the Honda Civic hybrid, an electric motor assists when the car is climbing hills or accelerating sharply. In the Toyota Prius, the electric motor takes over at low speeds. In both, the gas engine shuts off when the car stops.

Hybrids have until now been something of a curiosity and account for a small fraction of overall sales. Only three models — all small cars — are available, one from Toyota and two from Honda, and they cost a few thousand dollars more than conventional cars. About 150,000 have been sold worldwide since hybrids were introduced in the late 1990's, fewer than the number of vehicles typically produced by a single auto factory in a year.

But carmakers now appear ready for a much broader rollout. Earlier this month, at the North American International Auto Show here, G.M. — previously the industry's most vocal skeptic — publicly embraced the technology. The company said it would sell a hybrid version of its Saturn Vue sport utility vehicle in 2005 that would approach 40 miles a gallon in fuel economy, compared with mileage in the low 20's for current models. G.M. said it would offer vehicles with more limited forms of hybrid power, too, promising 10 to 15 percent improvements in fuel economy on four other models by 2007.

Also at the auto show, the annual beauty pageant where the industry trots out its latest designs and biggest pronouncements, Toyota said it would sell the first luxury hybrid, a Lexus sport utility vehicle, starting next year — part of a plan to sell 300,000 hybrids annually by mid-decade.

Ford plans to sell what will probably be the first hybrid sport utility vehicle, a version of the Escape, at the end of this year, and showed off a new hybrid prototype called the Model U.

Even the Army, which pays as much as $400 a gallon in battlefield fuel costs, had a hybrid on display — a hulking diesel combat vehicle, built by G.M., that is one of several prototypes being considered for service within a few years, including hybrid Humvees.

"You run those things on battery power; there's no noise," said Maj. Gen. Ross Thompson III, the head of the army's Tank, Automotive and Armaments Command, explaining the appeal of hybrids for the military. "For a reconnaissance mission, or if you want to not be noticed, you can use the batteries."

A century ago, in 1903, gasoline-powered Oldsmobiles shouldered past steam-powered Locomobiles to become America's top-selling brand. Never again would electric or steam cars rule the road. There is scant suggestion that hybrids may replace gasoline-powered cars in the same way. Among other things, two motors cost more than one.

But Stephen Girsky, an auto analyst at Morgan Stanley, predicts that hybrids could grow to 10 to 15 percent of American vehicle sales, which approached 17 million last year. Government incentives, gas prices and how much manufacturing costs can be reduced will be important factors, he said.

John Casesa, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, said that because the Japanese "view this as a core technology over the next decade," domestic automakers have to respond. "Inevitably, we're moving toward a future with higher fuel economy standards, risk to energy supplies and higher environmental consciousness," he said. "So there's a market pull here."

In addition to representing a response to the latest competitive threat from Japan, Detroit's hybrid plans are good for public relations, especially as hot-selling sport utility vehicles come under increasing criticism for how much gasoline they consume. A recent ad campaign by an evangelical group suggested that Jesus would find sport utilities morally unfit; another, orchestrated by Arianna Huffington, argued that these vehicles increased American reliance on oil from the Middle East.

But there remains considerable debate within the auto industry about whether hybrid technology is too costly to become universal — and whether its advantages are so modest that it represents a diversion from more worthy approaches to improving fuel economy.

"Right now," said Wolfgang Bernhard, chief operating officer of the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler, "everybody is jumping on the hybrid bandwagon and saying this is the most important thing and without it the world's going to end. It reminds me of the hype we had around e-business in the early 90's."

Daimler this year plans to sell a small number of hybrid Dodge Ram pickups tailored for contractors, who could use the trucks as mobile power generators. The company's German executives, though, prefer the updated diesel-engine vehicles already prevalent in Europe; diesels achieve 25 percent better mileage than comparable gasoline-powered cars. American environmentalists, worried about emissions of smog-forming pollutants, oppose a broad reintroduction of diesel-powered vehicles.

To Japanese-based carmakers, the choice is clear from an environmental standpoint. Hybrids are "the solution for today," said James E. Press, executive vice president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A.

"What's the cost of fuel?" he said. "It's not $1.80 a gallon. It's how much does a war in Iraq cost? How much does the fact you've got 75 years of this stuff left on the planet cost? And then what's the cost of pollution? At some point, the industry has to recognize it."

Last year, Toyota sold more than 20,000 of its Prius subcompacts, making Prius, which gets about 40 miles per gallon, the best-selling hybrid in the United States.

With a base price of $20,500, a Prius costs about $5,000 more than a Toyota Corolla. That is a considerable gap, though Prius buyers can take a $2,000 income tax deduction. Toyota says it now makes some profit on each Prius it sells, if the research-and-development costs are not factored in, but the company will not say how much less profitable hybrids are than its conventional vehicles.

Toyota executives insist that the cost differential can be brought down significantly. For example, Mr. Press said the electric motor in a sport utility vehicle could be configured to power the rear wheels, eliminating the need for, and cost of, a conventional four-wheel-drive system.

In addition, Congress has considered adding more tax benefits for buyers.

Rick Wagoner, G.M.'s chief executive, said such incentives, which could quickly accumulate into a considerable government subsidy, are critical to the future of hybrids, because G.M. does not intend to sell its hybrids at a loss.

"For this to go, it's a team sport," he said. "We're going to need the government in."

G.M.'s hybrid plans were promoted in full-page newspaper ads and greeted as something of a road-to-Damascus conversion. A Sierra Club statement likened the announcement to "Nixon going to China." Nicholas V. Scheele, Ford's chief operating officer, described himself as "baffled," noting that only recently G.M. had dismissed hybrids as too costly.

Lawrence D. Burns, G.M.'s vice president for research and development, attributed the change of heart to the early success of Toyota and Honda and "the uncertain future in 2005 and beyond with regulatory requirements and gasoline prices."

Robert A. Lutz, G.M.'s vice chairman for North American operations, was more blunt. "You just can't fly in the face of public opinion," he told The Detroit News. "It would be self-defeating to constantly say to ourselves,

Since the days of Thomas A. Edison, the auto industry has been trying to make a credible alternative to the internal combustion engine. Edison himself was a pioneer of the battery-powered car, though he is said to have told a young Henry Ford that his idea for a gasoline engine sounded pretty good.

The first car bought by the government, during Theodore Roosevelt's administration, was a Stanley Steamer, a steam-powered car. In the 1950's, Chrysler was so sure that cars powered by jet engines would be the future that it built a small fleet of them. Today, the industry is convinced that future generations of automobiles will be propelled by hydrogen fuel cells, which generate electricity through a chemical reaction.

If debate continues on hybrids, some clarity is emerging on other alternative technologies. The future seems notably dim for battery powered cars, whose batteries do not last very long and take hours to recharge.

"At the moment I think it's being put to rest," said Fujio Cho, the president of Toyota, adding that his company is "hardly selling any."

Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of Nissan, agreed that battery-powered cars are "completely obsolete," though Nissan continues to lease battery-powered Altra station wagons to California utilities.

Then there is the fuel cell, for environmentalists and even many auto executives the nonpolluting ideal of alternative fuel technologies. Not only did fuel cells power the inside of lunar landers, they emitted water for astronauts to drink. But will they soon supplant the internal combustion engine?

"Today a fuel cell car probably costs about — I'm going to be optimistic — $700,000," Mr. Ghosn said. "We're far from sticker price, eh? We're going to have to get it down to $20,000, $30,000."